As the only female initiate of the elite undercover society, the Dark Alliance, former FBI agent Madeleine Blake has a lot to prove—especially to her former lover, Alliance operative Jack Grayson. Ever since joining Jack’s team, Maddie’s been keeping her distance, trying not to relive every moment they shared during their brief but passionate affair. Yet when a mission ends in tragedy, Maddie’s ready to walk away from the Alliance—and Jack—forever. That is, until Jack’s cover is blown, putting his life in danger and making it impossible for Maddie to deny her true feelings…

Before he met Maddie, Jack Grayson thought happiness was impossible for a man like him. After all, he has a price on his head that requires him to live in the shadows, concealed from everyone and everything he cares about. But now that they’re on the run for their lives and Jack has Maddie in his arms again, he realizes their love is the only thing in his life that’s real. And this time, there’s no way in hell he’s letting it slip away…

Excerpt from Chapter 9 ofConcealed (Dark Alliance #2)

Maddie made her way into the rotunda of the hotel that had once served as the Charles Street Jail. The amber light cast too many shadows, making it hard to make out faces. But there was one face she couldn’t mistake. Jack stood at the bar, looking heart-stoppingly debonair in his black tuxedo. It took more than a little effort to drag her gaze away and focus on the others milling about the rotunda.

“Do you have eyes on any of our companions for the evening?” Jack asked as Maddie nodded in greeting as she passed by an actor she recognized but whose name she didn’t recall.

The actor didn’t hide the fact that he was looking her up and down, but when he started walking toward her as if to engage in conversation, Maddie turned on her stiletto heel and headed in the opposite direction.

“Negative,” she told him. “You?” When Jack didn’t immediately respond, her gaze drifted back toward the bar and locked with his from across the distance. “Jack, do you copy?”

#

Jack took another sip of his wine, trying to disguise the fact that the sight of Maddie had made him momentarily speechless. She was lovely beyond compare—her thick dark hair swept off her neck into an elegant arrangement, long curls having slipped out to rest against the delicate curve of her throat. The little black dress she wore accentuated the curves he’d often enjoyed tracing gently with his fingertips. His fingers tingled at the remembrance of the nights they’d shared together and of how close he’d come earlier in the day to being able to caress her in the way he so longed to.

And he nearly had. If he hadn’t questioned her certainty about where things were going that afternoon, there was no question how far things would’ve gone. But he was determined not to push her into “falling into bed” with him again, as she’d put it. They’d rushed toward satiating their yearning for one another far too quickly before, and Maddie had bolted. He wasn’t about to make that mistake again.

So why did he feel like he’d fucked up by bringing everything to a screeching halt just as they were revving up?

“I’m here, Mads,” Jack murmured, a familiar ache in the center of his chest.

Regret. Ah, yes, he knew it all too well . . .

Kate SeRine (pronounced “serene”) is a hopeless romantic who firmly believes in true love that lasts forever. So it's no surprise that when she began writing her own stories, Kate vowed her characters would always have a happily ever after. She's the author of the award-winning TRANSPLANTED TALES series, the PROTECT AND SERVE series, and the DARK ALLIANCE series.

Kate is a member of Romance Writers of America and of Indiana RWA and has been a finalist in the Fire and Ice Contest (2010), the Finally a Bride Contest (2010), and the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence (2013), and is the recipient of The Emily (2012) and the National Readers Choice Award (2012). She is represented by Nicole Resciniti with the Seymour Agency.

Kate lives in a smallish, quintessentially Midwestern town with her husband and two sons, who share her love of storytelling. She never tires of creating new worlds to share and is even now working on her next project--probably while consuming way too much coffee.